Coffee

The first record of coffee's discovery is from Yemen when an Arab named Khalid noticed that his animals became livelier eating a certain berry. He boiled the berries to create al-qahwa. This brew was later consumed by Muslims to stay awake through nights for prayers.

Sheikh 'Abd-al-Kadir, the Persian Sufi based in Baghdad, wrote the earliest known manuscript on the history of coffee in 1588. Coffee soon spread to rest of the Muslim world by travelers, pilgrims and traders reaching Makkah and Turkey in the late 15th century, from where it made its way to Venice in 1645.

Coffee was first introduced in England by a Turkish merchant named Pasqua Rosee in 1650 and its consumption was largely on the traditional Muslim preparation of the drink. By 1700, there were about 500 coffeehouse in London and nearly 3,000 in the whole of England. The Arabic 'al-qahva' became the Turkish 'kahve' the the Italian 'caffe' and then English 'coffee'.